Journey of a Thousand Miles

An Extraordinary Life

Ruey J. Yu

Publication Year: 2017

Born into poverty in Japanese-occupied Taiwan, Ruey Yu overcame near-starvation during the Second World War. Destiny, however, had other plans for him: he was to become an award-winning biochemist, then the co-founder of what would soon become the multi-million-dollar skin care company NeoStrata.

After living through the Second World War and the post-war military dictatorship of General Chiang Kai-Shek, Dr. Yu won a coveted post-graduate scholarship to study chemistry at the University of Ottawa. He subsequently took up a research position at the renowned Skin and Cancer Hospital (Temple University) in Philadelphia, where he collaborated with pre-eminent dermatologist Dr. Eugene Van Scott to develop treatments for serious skin diseases.

In 1972, Dr. Yu and Dr. Van Scott discovered that fruit acids, known as AHAs, could effectively treat the disfiguring skin disease ichthyosis, changing the lives of thousands of people who suffered from this debilitating illness. Their further research into the biochemical properties of AHAs led to the discovery of the anti-wrinkle and anti-aging effects of these natural substances—a discovery that was licensed by skin care companies around the world, sparking the multibillion-dollar cosmeceutical industry.

Cover

Title Page, Copyright

Contents

Foreword

My career in medical and biological science research has been divided into two
distinct phases: the before-Ruey Yu period and the Ruey Yu period. Throughout
both, I sought to associate with and work with those who would be my teachers
in areas of science where I was less knowledgeable. Since 1968, Ruey has been the...

Prologue: Taiwan, 1946

I was a fourteen-year-old boy with a passion for math
and sciences. I was small for my age, my growth stunted by
hunger and hard labour during the war years. But the war
lay behind me now, and ahead lay a future of knowledge...

1. Coal Dust and Daydreams

My Memories of early childhood are shrouded in a fog of coal smoke and the
din of freight trains clanging through the railway station behind our home. Amid
those hazy recollections, one scene stands out forever in my mind—a scene that,
even today, hits me with the raw force of childhood emotion...

2. Bowing to the Emperor

I turned seven years old in the spring of 1939. It was a year of war throughout
the world, and though our small island remained relatively sheltered, it would
soon be drawn deeper into the global conflicts. In Europe, Hitler’s Nazi army
invaded Poland and brought the Allied powers of Britain and France into the...

3. A “City Monkey” in the Country

In 1943, my father returned home from mainland China
and resumed his job at the Hsinchu railway station. His
return brought an improvement in our living conditions.
Dissatisfied with the shack at the brick factory, Ah-Shain...

4. Starvation and Surrender

As 1944 crept toward 1945, our hunger edged toward starvation. There was no
food to be had anywhere in the village. Even the farmers couldn’t control their
harvest. The Japanese soldiers confiscated the crops to feed the war effort, locking
hundreds of pounds of rice in a heavily guarded storage house in the village...

5. Return to Hsinchu

In the spring of 1946, my grandmother, my brother, and I packed up our few
belongings and returned to Hsinchu to live with my parents. We found the city in
a state of absolute chaos.
The Japanese had formally given up authority over Taiwan in September 1945,
and all Japanese nationals had been ordered to...

6. The Tale of the Poor Scholar

When I was in junior high school in the late 1940s, the Buddhist monks in our
neighbourhood would stage a play one night a month in the public square outside
their temple. As night fell, the drummers struck up a dramatic beat and the
monks appeared beneath the electric stage-lights, dressed in lavish costumes and...

7. A Diamond in the Trash

in those post-second world war days of the 1950s, Taiwan stood on the
Front line of the Cold War between Communism and Capitalism. Chiang Kaishek’s
Republic of China, which controlled Taiwan, and Mao Tse-tung’s People’s
Republic of China, which held the mainland, each claimed to represent the “true”...

8. Pedalling Through Taipei

In the fall of 1952, I arrived in Taipei to begin my studies. It was the second
time in my life that I’d moved away from my hometown of Hsinchu. Nearly ten
years before, I’d been the smart city boy, arriving amid the country bumpkins of
Fangliao. Now my role was reversed: I was the wide-eyed provincial lad, coming...

9. Pure Chemistry

During my university studies, chemistry became
the great passion of my life—a passion that has grown and
intensified the longer I’ve worked in the field. For me, the
great fascination of chemistry lies in the fact that it is so...

10. Quemoy

In the summer of 1960, I reported for duty at the military base in Taichung
in central Taiwan. Before me lay three months of gruelling boot camp in humid,
hundred-degree weather. We rose at six in the morning every day, performed
drills, learned to load and fire automatic weapons, and marched for many kilo...

11. Snowed Under

My overnight flight landed in Seattle, where I had a layover of several
hours before I was scheduled to board a connecting flight to Vancouver. Rather
than leaving me alone in the airport during that time, the airline had assigned a
Chinese employee to accompany me. This was not a case of courteous hospitality...

12. Coming to America

After finishing my PhD, I received a two-year post-doctoral research fellowship
in the Division of Bioscience at Canada’s National Research Council.
My research objective was to study chemical and biochemical aspects of pathogenic
fungi that infect human skin. Though I wasn’t rich, the fellowship covered...

13. A Life-Changing Discovery

In 1974, Gene and I published a landmark paper in the scientific journal Archives
of Dermatology describing the effects of alpha-hydroxyacids on ichthyosis. The
paper caught the interest of dermatologists across the United States and around
the world. Some doctors sent us their patients. Others asked us to send them jars...

14. Taking a Gamble

In 1980, I received a letter from the dean stating that my
job would be cut to part-time. This was my first inkling of
the dire things to come at the Skin and Cancer Hospital.
My salary, previously around $30,000, was reduced to...

15. Avon Calling

Some people might have thought I was crazy to continue
my chemistry research for years without pay. But research
was my driving passion, and in the end my gamble paid
off, both scientifically and financially: in 1986 Gene Van...

16. A Wrinkle in the Business

Prior to joining neostrata in 1993, Les had been the president of the
Dermatological Division of Ortho Pharmaceutical Corporation, a subsidiary of
Johnson & Johnson. Before ascending to that role, he’d been a high-placed sales
and marketing executive at Ortho, at a time when the company experienced...

17. Head to Head with the Pink Lady

The wheels of justice grind slowly, but in March 2005,
our date in court finally arrived. Our legal trial team, led by the
famous trial lawyer Michael Ciresi, flew in from as far afield
as Minneapolis and New York City. We rented the entire floor...

18. Moving Forward, Giving Back

After the Mary Kay case, business continued at NeoStrata under the excellent
guidance of Mark Steele, whom we hired as CEO in 2006. In 2009, our original
patent on AHAs as a wrinkle-fighting treatment expired, and the knowledge
entered the public domain. This ended a lucrative revenue stream based on royalty...

19. New Research Directions

Since founding NeoStrata in 1988, I had never stopped pursuing my research
into skin biochemistry and dermatological diseases. Although our company’s
profitability depended on creating products to treat wrinkles and aging skin, in
fact only about 20 percent of my time was spent on those cosmetic problems. I...

Epilogue: Philosophy and Vision of My Life

Certain components of my philosophy of life were
developed early in my childhood, from the combination of
inherited factors and environmental conditions. Over the
years, I’ve developed a more mature philosophy and vision...

Afterword: Ruey Yu as a Child of Taiwan

The island of Taiwan, baptized Ilha Formosa (“beautiful island”) by sixteenth-century
Portuguese explorers, emerges from the Western Pacific Ocean like a
verdant fortress of rainforests, windswept plains, towering mountain peaks,
and teeming life, all in an area half the size of New Brunswick, that is, 36,000...

Welcome to Project MUSE

Use the simple Search box at the top of the page or the Advanced Search linked from the top of the page to find book and journal content. Refine results with the filtering options on the left side of the Advanced Search page or on your search results page. Click the Browse box to see a selection of books and journals by: Research Area, Titles A-Z, Publisher, Books only, or Journals only.